Giving life to tragic tale

Tuesday

Jul 23, 2013 at 12:01 AM

On a warm summer night in the middle of July, with the unmistakable sound of plane engines humming in the background at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport, Delton "Wally" Walling transported a rapt crowd of nearly 50 people back to Dec. 7, 1941.

Lori Gilbert

On a warm summer night in the middle of July, with the unmistakable sound of plane engines humming in the background at the Stockton Metropolitan Airport, Delton "Wally" Walling transported a rapt crowd of nearly 50 people back to Dec. 7, 1941.

The 92-year-old veteran literally had a birds-eye view of the attack, perched in the communications center atop a water tower 180 feet in the air on that day that will live in infamy.

"The Japanese launched 182 planes from the northwest," Walling began. "Our radar was brand new. We didn't understand what those dots were on the screen. A couple flyers coming back from liberty stopped by the station, and when they turned it on it was full of dots. They didn't know what those dots were."

They contacted their commander, and mistaking them for the B17s heading to Hawaii from the mainland, the commander told them not to worry.

Walling had only stopped by the center at 7 a.m. that day, nine hours before his shift was to begin, to collect money from a friend who was set to ship out. He ended up witnessing the destruction of the U.S. Navy and with it, the unraveling of his pride and all he believed about U.S. military might.

"I'm still thinking we're the greatest in the world and they're shoving it down our throats," said Walling, who was 20 at the time and had been lured by the U.S. Navy posters that declared it the best in the world. "You can't imagine how I felt. I was mad. I was devastated. If they could do that in 20, 30 minutes, what else are they going to do? We didn't know. We were completely ignorant."

Thirty minutes was all it took, and as Walling shared his memories with members and guests of the Warbirds in Stockton, the military flyers organization, on Wednesday night, he described the sinking of the ships - the USS Utah, the USS Oklahoma, the USS West Virginia, the USS Maryland, the USS Arizona - with the clarity of someone who has the images seared in his mind.

Walling's practiced delivery gave life to the bombs and torpedoes striking those steel "battle wagons," which rolled over and slipped beneath the surface of the water, the smoke that filled the area, and the sailors swimming through pools of oil as their ships sank and fires erupted.

It's a story he's shared many times. Last year alone, during a five-week visit to Pearl Harbor, he gave 35 speeches. He's part of a video at the USS Arizona Memorial on Oahu, Hawaii. He's one of a dwindling number of survivors left to tell the story.

Retelling the tale of how America's involvement in World War II began comes naturally to Walling, but it wasn't something he always did.

His late wife, May, had lost her first husband and children in 1944 when their truck was struck by a train in French Camp, and she couldn't bear to hear the tragic story of Pearl Harbor. She passed away in 2003 and he's actively shared his story since.

It's quite a tale. The Michigan native hitch-hiked to Detroit as a 19-year-old in 1940 to enlist in the Navy, not wanting to be drafted into the Army and stuck digging a fox hole somewhere.

"I wanted to go choose where I'd go," Walling said.

A medical examiner classified him unfit - 4F - because the middle finger of his right hand had not healed properly when it was broken during a Golden Gloves boxing match. The doctor assured him he would qualify if he had the finger amputated. Armed with $20, Walling walked down the street and found a surgeon "as old as I am now," who agreed to perform the surgery, although he thought Walling crazy.

"I don't care, I have to join the Navy," the patriot, who if not willing to give his right arm was willing to give part of a right-hand finger, informed the doctor.

For $17 - enough left over for Walling to buy a sandwich on his way back home - the doctor removed the trip of the finger at the first joint, and Walling was enlisted. He was sent to Bremerton, Wash., where he trained in communications under Admiral James Richardson.

Walling credits the leader for making him a disciplined sailor, and was disappointed that Richardson was replaced as commander because of his opposition to moving the fleet to Hawaii.

With Admiral Husband Kimmel at the helm, Walling on the USS Pennsylvania and the rest of the fleet moved to Hawaii, training in the various ships every day for 18 months. All that schooling couldn't help any of them, though, when Japanese planes struck on Dec. 7.

"We were not prepared," Walling said.

Those dashed beliefs about the U.S. Navy superiority lingered with Walling, who was a first class communications officer, until after the battle of Midway, when having broken the Japanese code, knew its plans and sank four enemy aircraft carriers.

"After I found out how many ships were sunk, I had a feeling we were now the aggressor and would take it all back," Walling said.

He was aboard ships that transported Marines to nine different battles in the Pacific, his last being at Iwo Jima.

When he was discharged, he returned to Michigan and quickly tired of the cold winters. He ended up in Stockton in 1947 and spent 29 years working for a fiber board company and operating his own company, Wally's Tree Service. He retired in 1976 and moved to Fort Bragg, where he operated commercial fishing boats. He returned to this area when his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1998.

With his companion, fellow patriot and war plane enthusiast Joan Bohl, at his side, Walling has become a favorite at Pearl Harbor. He's part of a documentary shown there and spends time on Oahu every year. Someday, he'll have his ashes scattered there, as will Bohl.

"Time and tide wait for no man," he's fond of saying, and he knows they won't wait for him.

In the meantime, he honors the 54,000 men who died in the Pacific during World War II, the men he calls heroes, by sharing his story of Pearl Harbor and the ensuing battles he witnessed. In doing so, he also honors today's military, and fears for their future. He questions this country's ability to win today's version of war as his generation won World War II.

"I can only see us going in one direction," he said, rather mournfully. "We have lost our superiority of the world, whether you want to believe or not. When we lost that, then we started to lose the respect of countries we've kept safe in the past."

The wars in the Middle East are not winnable, he said, and countries where we've fought will continue their centuries-old ways when we're gone.

He should take heart. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor before his very eyes because it thought his generation was too weak-willed to challenge its superiority. America may still have the right stuff to surprise him, and anyone else who doubts it.